


Patres et socii

by MyLittleCornerOfSherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Co-Parenting, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, POV John Watson, Sherlock is a Good Boyfriend, baby's first year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 17:50:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5595313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyLittleCornerOfSherlock/pseuds/MyLittleCornerOfSherlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diana is adorable but she's just like every other baby. She sleeps, she stinks, she says her first word, and she gets sick. Sherlock handles it all better than you'd think and John can't help but love him even more for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patres et socii

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlainJane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlainJane/gifts).



> Snippets in time during baby Watson's (Diana) first year and a half. Each break is during a different month.  
> Patres et socii is Latin for Fathers and Partners.  
> A secret Santa fic for PlainJane (northray on tumblr) who loves parentlock. I hope you like it.  
> This work is unbeated, all errors my own.

_Help! Your assistance is needed immediately! -SH_

**You’re at the flat. What could possibly be so urgent?**

_An experiment. - SH_

**Get up and take care of it yourself.**

_Can’t. She’s asleep. -SH_

 

John huffs to himself, a small smile on his face at the fond image forming in his head. He pockets his phone and finishes his shopping before heading home. Sherlock really should know better by now. The last thing they need is her waking up because one of Sherlock’s experiments blows up...again.

He climbs the steps quietly being careful to avoid the squeaky step. The door is open, as he expected, so he walks in as silently as he can and sets the bags down before turning to the couch to find one of his favorite scenes. Sherlock is prone; his arm wrapped protectively around a small form. Slumbering peacefully, drooling on one of Sherlock’s soft pyjama cotton t-shirts, is John’s -- their -- fair-haired daughter. John would never have guessed that Sherlock had it in him but Diana has Sherlock wrapped around her tiny finger.

John chuckles quietly as he walks over to the two of them. “You started this you know. You have nothing to complain about,” he whispers.

“Babies sleep better with human contact and hearing a heartbeat. It reminds them of being in utero. Besides, I’m not complaining. But you will be if she wakes up. So kindly, remove that flask from the flame before it combusts.” Sherlock retorts, equally quiet.

John just shakes his head, walking into the kitchen and taking the tongs to remove the flask, setting it on the hot pad to cool. He turns back to ask Sherlock if there’s anything else he needs from him, only to find another one of his favorite scenes, Sherlock sleeping soundly with his arms wrapped protectively around Diana. The first time he’d seen that John had been terrified Diana might roll out of his arms, but the minute she began to wiggle in her sleep, Sherlock had instinctively adjusted his arms to her movement so that she stayed comfortable and safe in her sleep. Diana had never slept as well in her crib the short time he and Mary had stayed together after she had been born as she does when she falls asleep in Sherlock’s arms and the bedtime transfers to the new crib in John’s old room are much smoother. John smiles and turns his attention back to the groceries and kitchen. Someone has to take care of keeping the food from spoiling and cleaning the disaster Sherlock left if they’re going to have anything decent for dinner.

**~~~~~~~~**

“It’s your turn,” Sherlock says, his nose wrinkling.

“Really?” John waves an arm in the direction of the stove top. “I’m making dinner right now. If I stop to change her nappy the sauce will burn. Plus it’s unsanitary!”

“It’s just pasta and a jar of sauce. I can finish dinner. It is your turn after all,” Sherlock pouts.

John heaves a sigh. He knows Sherlock will change Diana’s nappy if he sticks to his guns but sometimes it’s just easier to cave. Pick your battles and what not.

“Fine, but you take the next two turns then. And, really, why do we even need to have a turn based system is beyond me.” John picks up Diana who had been on the verge of fussing and heads upstairs to the nursery to change her. She laughs and coos up at him, bopping him once in the nose while he babbles baby gibberish at her. Sherlock always looks at him like he’s lost his mind whenever he overhears John playing with their daughter like that but there’s always a soft smile that accompanies it so John doesn’t let it bother him. John finishes up the change, scoops up Diana, and drops the dirty nappy in the waste bin. He opens the door and catches a whiff of something that has nothing to do with the aforementioned dirty nappy.

“I’m going to take over all mealtime nappy duties if you’re going to turn out fabulous food like this!” John exclaims. How Sherlock managed to turn jar sauce into this fantastic concoction John’s now stuffing his face with, John will never know.

“Deal!” Sherlock says with a smirk.

“You wanker! That’s what you wanted all along!” John kicks Sherlock under the table.

“Language, John, language!” Sherlock tsks at him with a gleam in his eye, “She’s going to be talking any day now. Do you really want her first word to be one you wouldn’t utter in polite company?”

“Polite company, my arse. We are no such thing.” John just grins and Diana enthusiastically makes a mess of her share of pureed pasta and sauce.

**~~~~~~~~**

They tried. They really did. Both John and Sherlock agreed to not fight in front of Diana. Raised voices, anger, and the occasional projectile -- whether kicked or thrown -- fell severely in the “bit not good” category. Most days they succeeded and even when they didn’t one of them noticed her quick enough to utter a quick “Diana’s listening” and John or Sherlock would go to comfort her while the other took a walk to calm down. It usually helped them come back to the “discussion” after she had gone to bed or to visit Mrs. Hudson in a much better frame of mind. Who knew a baby would help them better express themselves?

But some days, something would happen and the anger would boil over to the fury that had been so often present in the months after Sherlock returned and while John was still with Mary. Today was one of those days.

John isn’t expecting Diana to be in the flat as he storms up the stairs. They had left her with Mrs. Hudson, as they often did when they were working on a case. And that’s where Diana is _supposed_ to be, in Mrs. Hudson’s cozy and now soundproofed flat. John is hurling angry words back at Sherlock as they climb the stairs into 221B and both of the men miss seeing Mrs. Hudson descending the stairs from the nursery.

The argument is heated; it’s been heated since they left the Yard. It’s escalating now and neither of them seems to know how to stop. John is afraid he’s about to say something he’ll regret later but he can’t really care right now when a small but very loud voice yells “STOP!”

Silence falls on the flat as John turns to see a tinier version of his own blue eyes, filled with tears, staring back at him. Diana sniffles as she clings to Mrs. Hudson’s dress but says again, quieter this time, “Stop.” It breaks his heart and he turns to see his own emotions reflected on Sherlock’s face. Quickly they rush over to her, surrounding her and Mrs. Hudson in one big hug. Apologies are uttered all around both to Diana and between John and Sherlock.

It’s a story that neither Daddy nor Papa are proud of, but in the coming years when they tell the story of Diana’s first word, they never fail to mention that she was able to get her meaning across well even at a very young age.

**~~~~~~~~**

John is woken up by a harsh sound coming from the monitor. Diana has been sleeping through the night for a while now but they keep the monitor in her room as a precaution, just in case John says. He worries about her having nightmares like her Daddy and Sherlock doesn’t say a word about it. John loves him all the more for indulging him when it would be very easy to say they don’t need it anymore. This night is about to prove just why John is right to keep the monitor there.

This sound isn’t like any of Diana’s normal sleeping noises where she murmurs or wakes up to talk to herself before going back to sleep. This is a barking cough followed by Diana wheezing while she cries. Diana had been acting off the previous day with a low grade fever. Both he and Sherlock had put it down to teething. She had cut her first tooth at six months and had been teething off and on since then. But when John hears this cough he realizes it must be something else.

He slips from the bed, not wanting to wake Sherlock. He’s a doctor he can handle this. He makes his way up the stairs and opens the door to the nursery, flipping on the light. Diana is sitting up in her crib, eyes red from crying, her breathing audible even from where he’s standing. “Daddy,” she says her voice hoarse.

“Ssssshhhh. Daddy’s here,” John whispers as she reaches for him. He picks her up kissing her forehead to gauge her temperature. It’s much warmer than he’s comfortable with. He carries her to the rocking chair, turning off the monitor, and grabbing the tympanic thermometer from her dresser as he goes. When he takes her temperature it reads 40C confirming his suspicions. She continues to have coughing fits and wheeze. Now that he can hear them without the background noise from the monitor he can hear just how bad they are. With each passing fit it gets worse and she begins to struggle to cry. John’s doctor brain knows it’s just croup but this is his daughter and it’s much more terrifying as a parent than it was when he was treating other people’s children.

About an hour later Sherlock walks in, running his fingers through his hair. “You weren’t in bed and I heard her even without the monitor,” he says looking at the two of them.

“I think it’s croup,” John says, surprised at the shake in his voice. “Her cough is getting worse and her temperature is on the rise.”

“How’s her breathing?” Sherlock asks, laying a hand on John’s shoulder and bending to kiss Diana’s head.

Diana turns to look up at them both and John thinks he’s never seen a more pitiful baby in his life. He gives her a gentle squeeze before answering. “Not getting any better,” he replies.

Sherlock looks at them both. “Okay, I’ll get the shower going in the bathroom. Bring her down in five minutes. That should give it time to get steamy enough.”

John silently berates himself as he comforts Diana through another coughing fit in the meantime. A steamy bathroom should have been the first thing he’d done. Instead he’d sat here and let her croup get progressively worse. He carries her downstairs and into the bathroom where he and Sherlock sit and comfort her as best they can. Ten minutes later Sherlock herds them into the living room where he wraps Diana and John in a blanket and he opens a window letting in the cold December air. Diana gasps at the shock of it.

Sherlock smiles, “She’s not as raspy and,” he lifts the blanket and looks closely at her chest, “her stridor looks less in distress. Stand here for another ten minutes then we’ll need to take her back to the bathroom and repeat the process a few more times. If we can get her fever down, she should be able to get back to sleep tonight. Where’s the infant paracetamol?”

“It’s in the medicine cabinet,” John says wearily. Sherlock comes back with the appropriate dosage for Diana. She takes it without any fuss and snuggles back into John’s arms.

The three of them go back and forth between the bathroom and living room three more times before Sherlock is satisfied that Diana is breathing better and the worst has passed. While John rocks her to sleep his brain is buzzing. He should have been the doctor tonight. Sherlock could have berated him at any point for not recalling his training, but instead Sherlock just took over and let John be the worried parent. And John had let him. They have been co-parenting Diana for months now, but John realizes after tonight just how much he trusts this man with his daughter as well as with himself. He looks down at Diana’s face, now peaceful in sleep, and can’t believe how lucky he is. He gently puts her into her crib and heads downstairs.

The lights are all off in the flat except for the twinkling of the fairy lights and lights on the tree that they had decorated the flat with for Christmas. It’s still early but as he stands in the middle of the living room he realizes he had forgotten what the date had changed over into in all the fuss. Sherlock walks up behind him, wrapping his arms around John’s waist and rests his chin on John’s shoulder. John rests his hands over Sherlock’s closed ones and heaves a heavy sigh, “Well that was a lovely Christmas present.”

Sherlock nods, “Our Christmases have always been eventful, why would this one be any different?” he says with a chuckle. “At least we didn’t have to make a trip to the A&E with her.”

“No thanks to me. My knowledge went right out the door when it came to my baby girl. I always knew that to be true about doctors but I never thought it’d happen to me. Thought I’d be different. Thanks for being there for me.” John squeezes Sherlock’s wrists.

“That’s what husbands do for each other,” Sherlock murmurs in John’s ear.

“Husbands?” John asks, almost in disbelief.

Sherlock turns one of his hands over, revealing a small box. “Well, yes, if you’ll have me. I had planned on having Diana give it to you from me in the morning, but she needs her rest.”

John stares down at the gold band in the box, at a loss for words. All he can do is nod before he turns around and kisses his new fiancé.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Author's headcanon: This fic takes place after John moves back into Baker Street in my fic, D. de lumine.


End file.
